Algorithm Coffee

The coffee is great and not too pricey for what you get. However, I ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese “for here” and it came with the cream cheese on the side with a flimsy knife to spread it myself. The everything bagels are also quite liberally sprinkled with fennel seeds, which I’d never had before and was a bit overpowering in its licorice flavor. The music is nice in the background and the layout is very open and yet cozy, but it was very dark when I was there in the afternoon.

First visit here and I was impressed by the detail and care they have put into this nice little place on University and San Pablo. They offer you two options for coffee; Guatemala or Ethiopian. I got the Ethiopian blend I really liked it. Got their mushroom/asparagus savory pastry as well which was probably my favorite thing on their menu. Will definitely go back.

Quirky, and not in a good way. I arrived a little before 8 a.m. on a weekday. You'd figure a coffee shop would be busy, but there was only one customer seated inside, and only one employee. (Friendly, he is the only reason this review is two starts and not one.) There's no menu except a little board with their coffee prices (shot of espresso is $3. A 12oz cupajoe is $2.75). And apparently no food except two cardboard boxes of usual and some unusual (asparagus, anyone?) pastries. I tried the goat cheese pretzel pastry which the friendly barista happily offered to "heat up" for me. The nuked goat tasted about as you'd imagine, pungent and mushy. The latte was just okay. The interior has a grim, nightmarish quality. The kind of coffee shop you'd expect to find in hell. Concrete and metal surfaces, uncomfortable seating on hard plastic chairs and cold metal stools facing long tables that seated 8 or more. (No cosy 2-tops or 4-tops for you. You must share!). The tabletops were made of rough reclaimed wood that made me worry about splinters. The only art on the bare whitewashed walls (besides the forgettable store logo, which looks like somebody threw spaghetti on a pizza tray) were some paintings for sale by a local artist that also looked like it would be at home in hell. The music was of the soft, moaning, mumbling-suicidally-depressed-millennial sort. The wifi worked great, but then the place was nearly empty. The "algorithm" for this coffee shop? 1. Stop. 2. Run. 3. Go to the roastery around the corner.